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Knowing God?
This is the unedited version. I will try to put out cleaner copy if time permits.
What can we know about a god, and how
One of the most interesting questions to be explored with regard to religion is about the god of that religion, specifically, what can we know about that god. That necessitates the follow up question: How can we know it. As a skeptic, I get a lot of Christians telling about their god, who he is, his characteristics, and what he wants from us. What I don't get much of is how they know all that, and why I should accept their word as authoritative. Let's jump in with the most obvious answers and see where it goes from there:
God is
Moses wanted to know what to tell the Egyptian king when he asked about who sent Moses. God told Moses to say that the I AM sent him. Not only does god exist, but in some way, he is existence itself. God is. Whatever is is, god is. That is both the most basic thing about god, and the most confusing.
It seems to me that such a proposition should be independently verified and not dependent on special revelation as found in a book. It should just be obvious to everyone that god is. It is a thing that shouldn't need to be proven. We know that god is because god speaks to us. He appears to us in unambiguous ways. Furthermore, he has done so since our birth. No one ever has to prove that clouds exist. Even small children know that clouds exist. Somehow, god is more etherial than clouds. That's weird.
So how do we know that god exists? What is the big proof of his existence. The biggest proof offered by Christians is that it says so in a book. Also, everything we know about god is conveniently located in a book. But that does not satisfy the demands of proof because the propositions in the book also need to be proven independently. We are just kicking the can down the road.
Another way Christians try to prove that god exists is through formal and informal philosophy. This is a rather iffy project because most professional philosophers are not believers. And most non-philosophers are not particularly good at doing philosophy. I'm a pretty sharp guy most days and some of those arguments fly over my head. Beyond that, philosophy is a very roundabout way of proving the existence of a god. No one uses philosophy to prove the existence of dogs, germs, or football teams. God is in a special category that cannot be proven conventionally.
Christians try to equate god's existence to love. But no one has to prove the existence of love as it is something we have all experienced. We don't have to prove happiness, beauty, or numbers. God is not in the same category. But if he is, that is just proof that I am a bad philosopher who can never find god via that mechanism.
Also, Christians suggest that they know god exists because of nature and science. This one has always seemed to be a bit of a stretch since many naturalists and scientists don't believe god exists. Some do. But others don't. All that proves is that it is an unreliable mechanism for discovering god. Paul thought that nature proved the existence of god. Then again, he also thought that it was a disgrace for women to have short hair, in part, because of the angels.
One thing I have learned about science is that it is far from intuitive. Some bits of it are. But that just gives one the false confidence to think they understand science intuitively. If you believe science is mostly intuitive, you are wrong about the science you think you know. God is the easy and intuitive answer to hard problems of ancient people. Magical answers are what children intuit. If Jesus is the answer, you are probably not asking a science question at all. There is nothing about nature that speaks of a god. However, if you do find god in a telescope, a Nobel Prize awaits.
He is omni
Another thing Christians seem to know about god is that god is omni everything. I have no idea why this is necessary. But for Christians, it is. My guess is that it is like the children's argument about whose dad is the best. My dad is smarter than yours, and stronger, and faster, and better in every way to the ultimate degree. Oh yeah? Mine is better to infinity!
For god to be better than other gods is not enough. He has to be better to infinity. God is all powerful, all knowing, all loving, all present, and all everything else you can think of, to infinity! I guess that makes him the best god. But how could anyone possibly know gods true characteristics. It isn't as if we have done a scan or checked his DNA. There isn't even clear scriptures for all that. So how do we know?
A god could be very powerful without being all powerful. A god could have created something without having created everything. We don't need to solve the first-mover problem to posit a god that created the earth. That is unsatisfying to Christians. They tend to prefer a god that is responsible for everything. It is all or nothing for them. Not so with other god-beliefs. My point is that all-powerful is not a necessary trait for a god. And there is no obvious reason why the Christian god has to have that trait. So why do Christians insist that he does?
Even if the bible said that he had those traits, it doesn't follow that he does for all the same reasons that the bible is not proof that this god even exists. So where else would we go to find those traits. Again, they tend to go to philosophy and nature to make an argument that can be sustained by neither.
God is good
Every child knows that god is great. God is good. But how do they know? They haven't read the bible. They know because the primary authority figures in their lives told them that god is good. They learned it by wrote and never bothered unlearning it. I guess that settles it. But how do they know it is true?
Stop me if you've heard this before: we know god is good because it says so in a book. Since we have already dealt with that, I will leave it there. That said, we don't get philosophy for this one because there is absolutely nothing that is philosophically necessary for a god to be good. Thee could be an evil god, or a morally neutral god, or simply an amoral god. Theological issues make it even more difficult to know if this god is good or not.
God is as far above human understanding as it gets. We know only what he has revealed. We have no way to judge god's goodness. That being the case, we have no way of evaluating god's claims about his own goodness. We are supposed to be so sinful and broken that our hearts are on evil all the time. Our hearts are deceitful. So we think a lot of things are good that god doesn't, and think a lot of things are not good that he considers good. Since we cannot evaluate god's goodness by our standards of goodness, how do we know he's good? We have no way of knowing for sure.
As near as I can tell, the only way we can know that god is good is that he said so in his book. He said he did some things that we can never verify. Yet Christians seem to take his self-report on faith. That does not seem to be a justifiable move to me. But that's just me.
In that same book are examples of god being what I would describe as evil. The best I could say about him based on his book (and that is if we believed every word of it) is that he is sometimes good and sometimes evil. That does not support the claim that he is all good, or somehow the very definition of goodness. Like any evil tyrant, he has some good in him. Like any good saint, he has some evil in him.
That said, I have no reason to believe the testimony written in a book about the goodness of a god that can't be validated. Another way we might be able to determine is moral orientation is to look at the creation he is said to have delivered. It has lots of good, joy, and delight. Those are very good things indeed. It is also red in tooth and claw. Human nature is neither inherently good or evil. By nature, we do good things and bad things. That doesn't speak to the ultimate goodness of a creator.
Then, there is nature itself. It seems to be decidedly bad at times. We have all kinds of diseases that we didn't create. Childhood cancer seems to be among the most unforgivable things if nature is overseen by a moral god. Beyond birth defects, there are natural disasters that boggle the mind. We didn't create earthquakes, tsunamis, or volcanos. The only thing Christians can say is that these are the results of human sin. But god is the one who set the consequences up for sin, not us.
Christians must assume that their god is the embodiment of goodness. But there is no way for us to know whether or not god really is good. And by our best lights of goodness, he doesn't seem to be. I am not compelled to take his goodness on faith, and see no reason why anyone else should either.
God wants things from you and for you
Another foundation belief about god is that he is personal. He is not distant and uninvolved. He is within his creation and close at hand, working to have a meaningful relationship with you. As a part of that relationship, he wants to do things for you and he wants you to do things for him.
As a part of that relationship language, he has been described as father, husband, friend, judge, rewarder, and executioner. He is said to have a full range of emotions from love, hate, jealousy, the works. He is said to rejoice, rage, and repent. He is like every person you have ever met, but with ultimate power. That is not a particularly reassuring idea.
As with all personal gods, you can please him and displease him. Again, that is not terribly reassuring because it means you have to know exactly what it takes to please him, and what it takes to displease him. Get it wrong, and there is literally hell to pay.
This leads to one of two outcomes, both of which I have experienced many times. The the first outcome is that the believer becomes unjustifiably convinced that they know exactly what is expected of them and those who differ with them are wrong. The other outcome is that they go through a sort of angst-driven madness because they are never certain if they are doing the right things and avoiding the wrong ones.
I see no reason to believe that anyone knows for certain what a god would want. It comes down to it being written down in a book with near magical properties, or they have direct and unmistakable, personal, internal messages from this god. Not only can they not convince others of the truth and accuracy of these messages, they shouldn't be able to convince themselves of it either. The simple fact is that many religious people feel the same way, but the Christian receiving their messages would dismiss the experience of other people as being wrong. But if one person's internal experience can be convincing but wrong, so could yours.
God offers punishments and rewards
It says right in the book that god is the rewarder of those who diligently seek him. In fact, that same passage is prefaced by the order that those who come to him must believe this great truth. I supposed it makes some sense. After all, if you don't believe there is a reward for your lifetime of service and devotion, it might dampen your enthusiasm to do anything for this god.
I recall one Christian arguing that even if there was no reward and god wanted him to suffer horribly then die, he would be happy to do it because of his great love for his god. That doesn't sound like any kind of healthy love I would recommend for anyone. If you knew that your god was going to demand much of you then stiff you for the bill, you should probably get out.
But that leads to the other thing that Christins almost have to believe which is that god is a punisher of those who fail to seek and find him. Perhaps it makes sense to serve a tyrant that you fear just so you can avoid the even worse fate that he has in store for you if you don't. Again, I would just say this doesn't seem like the healthiest of relationships.
Christians seem to be in equal parts confused and confident about the nature of the reward and punishment. It can be boiled down to heaven and hell. But no one is particularly clear on what those things are. While both are described in the Bible as places, some Christians argue that neither are places at all.
It is difficult to calibrate the amount of faith one should poor into the god gamble when the rewards and punishments are so undefined. We can’t even determine if there are any rewards and punishments handed out at all. It is not as if anyone has received their just desserts and returned to confirm it. We have had people lie about it and earn their 15 minutes of fame over those lies. But we have no way to validate that rewards and punishments exist. Despite that, the Hebrews writer just insists that we have to believe god is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. I don't.
God has a plan
Another thing we are expected to know about god is that he has a plan, a plan for good. And you are a part of that sovereign plan. I could boil down Molinism to a simple phrase: God has his reasons. And with that, we are pretty much done with all rational discourse on god and his actions. The Christian has given up trying to understand the mysterious ways of god and have simply settled into righteous complacency. God has his reasons. And that is good enough for them.
Not only does god have his reasons, he has no intention of telling you what they are. It is as if believers think it would be an act of rebellion to ask. Some would say that I want to evaluate god's reasons before deciding to obey his commands. They are exactly right. I do want to evaluate the reasons. If someone tells you to kill your kid, you should be able to know the reasons so you can determine if that action makes sense.
For the record, I can't conceive of any morally good reason to tell someone to kill their kid. Perhaps that child will spread a disease that would destroy humanity. Great. If god knows that, then why did he allow the child to be born in the first place. He does intervene in such matters according to his book. He could just solve the problem before it starts. If it slipped past him, he could do the wet work himself without commanding a parent to do it.
It is always a dereliction of duty to shrug off your moral responsibility and say that some higher power told you to do something awful and that he has his reasons that he refused to share. If you are driving a car and someone tells you that it is okay to change lanes, you still have to look to see for yourself. If something bad happens while executing a no-look turn, the resulting calamity is entirely your responsibility. In court, you cannot offer the defense that someone else told you to turn. It does not matter how great an authority they were. It is always and only your responsibility. If you can't handle that, don't drive.
What Christians seem to know that I don't is that god has his reasons for everything and those reasons are good. In fact, those reasons are perfect. They are often beyond human understanding and you have no right to question them. That is a lot to take on faith.
Conclusion: Agnostic
At the end of the day, I don't know those things and I don't know how to know that which Christians claim to know. As it happens, I also actively don't believe any part of the god proposition. But that is quite beside the point. Part of my unbelief is that I am agnostic. That simply means I don't know and I don't know how to know. The fact that I, and so many others don't know strongly argues for a god that doesn't exist. If the Christian god existed, we really should know it.
See you in the comments...
David Johnson
Dale’s Eleven
In fairness to Dale, he said he would be slightly reworking his 11 premise argument (11PA) so I will not post the ones I have and wait for him to provide something more up to date. It was past time we had a fuller discussion of his primary work. Enjoy.
If not for Paul
Every now and then, some Christian gets upset at me for suggesting that Paul was a big, fat liar. The very idea is unthinkable to them. It is as if they believe that Paul could no more be lying with regard to his religious pronouncements than Jesus. That type of Christian tends to hold to some form of biblical inerrancy. As a result of that belief, they find it unthinkable, if not altogether impossible for any biblical writer to be lying.
That goes double for Paul because he wrote the plurality of the New Testament. Even if we only count the authentic letters that no one questions, Paul still is the most prolific author in the entire bible. He absolutely dominates the New Testament which happens to be the most important part for Christians.
That is not to say that the Old Testament is not important to them. It is, but only in the light of how Paul interpreted the Hebrew scripture. They don't necessarily study the Old Testament as much as they study how Paul understood and explained the Old Testament. We have to consider how Paul understood the passages he cited because he used the Old Testament as a major influence on how he understood Christianity. But if Paul was wrong and a bit deceptive about what the Old Testament said and meant, then it has a baring on how we understand the Old Testament, the New Testament, and Christianity itself.
If it turns out that Paul was an unreliable source, where would that leave Christianity? That is why this topic is so important. I have already made the case in earlier shows that Paul was an unreliable source. So what does Christianity look like without Paul?
When we take this exercise seriously, we start to realize just how important a figure Paul was to what we think of as Christianity. I contend that modern Christianity wouldn't exist without Paul. Once you remove Paul and pseudepigrapha from the authentic writings. I don't think there is enough left on which to base a religion, let alone modern Christianity. Let's find out:
The gospel according to Jesus
Would we get Christianity if all we had was the sayings of Jesus? What about the sayings of Jesus and the book of Acts? What about Jesus, Acts, Hebrews, and Revelation? What if we threw in James, Peter, John, and Jude for free? I don't think any of those are overly helpful in creating and sustaining an organization like the Christian church. Do you? I'm really interested in what you think about this. Let me know in the comments.
If we just focus on Jesus, we are either left with nothing to work with, or we're left with a religion that is very different than what we know. That religion would not be accepted in the modern world. Indeed, it isn't. The teachings of Jesus have largely been rejected in the West. Here is a very brief and incomplete summary of things Jesus taught that might not be compatible with the teachings of the church as instituted by Paul:
He that believes Both Jesus and Paul put an emphasis on faith. But there are a lot of major differences. They both link believing to salvation. But what are people supposed to believe? Paul seems to require belief in the death and resurrection of Jesus for the forgiveness of sins. However, Jesus was still alive when he insisted that people love him and believe in him. So what exactly were they supposed to believe?
It makes little since that Jesus would insist on belief in the resurrection as he kept it largely a secret from the masses, only appearing to a handful of close disciples. It is a thing no one could verify. The same applies to Jesus being god. For much of his ministry, there was the messianic secret where Jesus didn't want his true identity revealed. He never went on a revelation tour. So there are many who wouldn't have received the memo about his lordship.
Though Jesus said that those who believe and baptize will be saved while those who don't believe will be condemned, it is not exactly clear what he wanted people to believe. What is it that a person is condemned for if he fails to believe it? Growing up in the church, this was a matter of much debate. It couldn't have been the church because it didn't exist. It couldn't have been specific doctrines and sacraments because they didn't exist. There was no Christian religion in which to believe.
If the church was to be ushered in by Peter, then why did Paul become the point man for the religion? We don't learn about the church primarily from Peter, but from Paul. Jesus never announced the coming of Paul or even hinted at there being another who would come like a voice crying out in the wilderness. No one who listened to the teachings of Jesus could have predicted the coming of Paul. Jesus gave the world his messenger and Paul wasn't it.
Good works Paul did not believe in righteousness by works. The only path to salvation was faith via grace. That is not the story we get from Jesus. His message was that service to others was the path to serving him. Failure to do good works to others was failure to be recognized by him. You could not be a member of his kingdom without doing good works.
Worldly responsibilitiesNot only did you have to have the right deeds, you had to have the right attitudes. There was also a matter of your orientation toward, the world and the world's orientation toward you. Paul wanted church leaders to have a good reputation among outsiders. Jesus found it to be a blessed state when the world hated and reviled you. Paul wanted leaders to be responsible with money and household management. Jesus wanted people to be rid of money and possessions. Paul insisted that believers have strong bonds with family. Jesus insisted that believers hate the very institution of family and even encouraged his followers to abandon family for him.
Getting paid Not only Did Jesus want is followers to be poor, he wanted his workers even poorer. When he sent out his disciples to do ministry, he did not allow them to bring money or receive money from anyone. They got room and board from one household. That was it. They were not allowed money, nor the trappings of money when working in the field. Paul insisted that leaders were to get a salary for their work as ministers. It is funny how they both use the same passage to make their very different points about how leaders were to be supported. The West has clearly chosen Paul's point of view.
Organization and succession Jesus had no clear organization for the kingdom except to imply there would be twelve thrones for his apostles and that Peter somehow had a special place in leadership. There was never any word about a line of succession because Jesus thought the end of all things was very near. His church was more spiritual rather than literal. If there was going to be some sort of physical kingdom, it would be at the resurrection.
This started to change the moment Jesus left the scene. Peter became the leader of a commune where people were bringing their money to him rather than giving it to the poor. He took it upon himself to appoint deacons to deal with some of the day to day issues of running an organization. Paul seems to have expanded that idea and forming a structure more aligned with the Jewish model of leadership in some ways. He also seemed to take succession more seriously since it was clear that the organization was going to be around for a long time.
Whatever Jesus had in mind for the kingdom, it wasn't the church organization we know today. He left absolutely no practical instructions for how such an organization should work. Paul was the church builder, not Jesus.
Lost sheep of Israel While there were some exceptions, Jesus had a limited ministry to the ones he referred to as the lost sheep of Israel. He never expanded the scope of that ministry to include anyone else. He only expanded the geographic scope of the field. There were lost sheep of Israel throughout the world. We find in two places where Jesus was very specific about the target audience.
As it happens, I believe Paul was also targeting the same group, at least at first. But he ran into the same frustrations as Jesus and Peter. As a result, he expanded the mission to include everyone. This is something I spoke of extensively on Red Letters. There, I argued that Paul never clearly expanded his mission to include non-Jews because the lost sheep of Israel was a way of talking about those who were historically Jews, but scattered and assimilated into Gentile culture. That said, the church that Paul built certainly interpreted him as opening the door of the kingdom to every individual in the world rather than every member of the lost sheep of Israel. I couldn't tell you when that transition happened. But it obviously did because here we are.
The Lord's Supper
When Jesus yelled at the crowd and commanded them to eat him, he didn't have any juice and crackers on him at the time. It seems unlikely that is what he meant because at no time did he link his teaching to a ceremonial event such as the one we have today.
The closest thing to that is the extension of the sabbath meal that Jesus performed twice with his inner circle. Even then, he never indicated that this would become an ongoing ritual for all disciples every week. That was Paul's innovation, or at least, and innovation he made into law. Jesus was no stranger to symbolic, one-time rituals.
Foot washing
Jesus washed his disciples feet exactly one time, and late in his ministry. He told them they should continue the tradition, but gave no formal instructions. As near as I can tell, this ritual was never practiced or mentioned again.
That said, it is something Jesus did. Why did that not become an institution of the church? Why do we think of that as a one and done literal event that should be carried out metaphorically, but practice the Lord's Supper as a literal and not metaphorical event that was to be literally and specifically carried out as a church institution? My guess is that foot-washing is uncomfortable and ridiculous for all parties which the Lord's Supper is food. It is easy and everyone likes food.
I contend that under Jesus, we would no more have an ongoing ritual of communion than we would foot-washing. They are not different in institution but they are different in practice and acceptance. Jesus made the Lord's Supper a one-time symbol while Paul and company made it a sacrament.
Where two or three are gathered
There were no regularly scheduled church services mandated by Jesus. He once made a vague statement about being in the midst of his disciples when two or three of them were gathered together. But that is hardly the basis of a weekly service. There is also an off-hand mention of them singing a hymn before leaving. But that also was not any kind of formal event as we know it.
Jesus was always with his disciples except for the times when he would go off and worship alone. Jesus seemed to value solitary worship over group worship. He wanted his followers to only pray when it couldn't be seen by others. Paul was all in on corporate worship rather than individual worship expressions.
Under Jesus and only Jesus, what mandate do we have for a worship assembly? What would happen in that assembly? What day would it be on? What activities would take place? How often does it have to be observed? Jesus doesn't give us any of that.
We don't even get any of that in the early days of the church. Peter offers no details about worship assemblies. The fellowship was organized like a commune with people selling possessions and laying the money at the feet of the apostles. What property they kept was shared equally with everybody in the commune. Naturally, there were plenty of occasions for the apostles to teach and encourage. But that is not the same as organized worship assemblies. The apostles went from house to house. There was no indication that all the houses came together regularly.
What about church buildings? When was the first one built, and under whose instructions? When did the gathering of money for the purpose of church administration begin? When was the first time the church set aside money for buildings and staff at an institutional level? It didn't happen in the time of Jesus. It seems we have Paul to thank for most of this. Jesus never wanted any of this. He didn't think the world would be around long enough anyway. He had no use for such trappings.
Indulgences and forgiveness
Jesus never would have given anyone a pass for sinning. It also seems unlikely that he would have centralized the power to forgive sins. After all, he commanded his followers to forgive one another as often as needed. There was no centralized forgiveness department. God forgave sins. And we could forgive one another our daily trespasses.
So how did it happen that Jesus telling Peter he had the power to bind and loose lead to the idea that the church had the power to define sin, grant exceptions to it, and forgive those sins? That seems to be exactly the opposite of what Jesus had in mind. Jesus didn't give Peter the authority to override or change his laws. Jesus commanded all of us to forgive sins and to live righteously. There were never any exceptions to these rules.
Paul is the one who gave us priests. The general function of a priest is to be the intermediary between humans and their god. But why do Christians need priests? We all have direct access to god. We can go to him and just ask for forgiveness when we sin against him. We can bring our sacrifices directly to him. Though I don't recall Jesus demanding specific sacrifices.
Gateway to salvation
When did the church become the gateway to the kingdom? Jesus never said people had to go through an institution to get to him and the father. He did seem to command baptism, though he never explained it. But there was no indication that a priest-like figure needed to do the baptism. Some people have been known to baptize themselves. This is frowned upon. But why? The symbolism is still in tact. The power to bring people into the presence of god is with god and the individual.
Why shouldn't a person get a nonbeliever to baptize them. The power is not in the baptizer, but in the act of submission. Jesus never gave any instructions on how baptism was to be done. All we have is head canon. If we try to ground our beliefs in Paul, we also have to accept baptism for the dead, which almost no Christians do. I don't believe Jesus left us enough to ground salvation into some kind of formalized ritual performed by priests on an institution.
Conclusion: The invisible church
Sometimes, church is described as the visible church and the invisible church. Jesus did not establish a visible church. But many argued that he established the invisible church and left the details of the visible church to his lieutenants. I don't buy it.
You can't have a visible church that is radically opposed to the invisible church and have them be the same organization. The visible church we have today looks nothing like what we would expect from Jesus. And we cannot square that circle by saying that Jesus gave his disciples permission to change what he taught and wanted out of his kingdom.
The church of Paul is very much the visible church with the hardest things being spiritualized to the point of irrelevancy. For Jesus, the hard things were the point and he gave little attention to physical realities. He wasn't interested in successful institutions that the state would eventually adopt and force onto the world. He was never interested in monuments and temples. He wasn't interested in ongoing rituals. His kingdom was no more visible than his spiritual truths.
To get to the church of today, we absolutely need Paul. We can't get there without him. So how do we know we can trust him? He had a lot to gain by becoming the de facto leader of a church that looked a lot like a cult. He claims to have had some visionary experience where he was ushered into heaven. Do you believe him when he says that? I don't. And I am never provide any reason why I should. He creates a position for himself in the church where he was to be paid a salary. That is incentive enough for him.
We get suspicious of evangelists who collect a lot of money from the faithful. But we tend to give Paul a pass. Paul didn't know Jesus during his ministry. Yet we tend to follow his path and not the path of those who actually knew Jesus. We don't really have their stories and we don't seem too interested in finding them.
At best, Jesus gave us an invisible church. Why do you trust Paul to give us a visible one?
See you in the comments...
David Johnson
4S: Christian Deconstruction with John MacArthur Part 1 and Part 2
Clint, Gary, and David tackle JMac's views of Christian deconstruction.
Switching Sides
Have you ever changed teams? This happens all the time in modern sports. It is really hard to maintain team loyalty when the star player you love up and leaves to play for the division rival. That's really awkward. In the course of a couple of seasons, half the roster shifts. The team you have hated all your life suddenly has your three favorite players. That's messed up.
Something similar happens in the realm of religion. But the stakes are much higher. It is not going to end well if you leave your Baptist heritage in a Baptist town for the Presbyterians. Your job could literally be in jeopardy over such a move. And that is not the most consequential of the defections you could make.
I am an X-tian. I was not only a Christian, but a small-time preacher. I was as inner-circle as inner-circle gets. My kind of defection is particularly painful, frightening, and rage-inducing to Christians. It hurts their cause much more than a generic Christian who had no status because I have seen all that Christianity has to offer. I know where the bodies are buried. And I judged it wanting. Ouch!
With that kind of defection, your best Christian friends turn into your worst enemies in a blink. Their loathing for you is even greater than the love they once had for you. They don't actively want to kill you. But were you to die in an unfortunate fire, they wouldn't shed a tear. It would just be god pouring out his glorious judgement on the worst kind of sinner imaginable.
Sometimes, that defection happens in reverse. An atheist or agnostic turns to faith. With that defection, the Christian is insufferably pleased. That single defection serves to bolster their faith and stands as proof against atheist propaganda. Jesus lives and Jesus saves. The Holy Spirit is alive and active in the world. The kingdom of god continues its inevitable in-breaking into the world and god continues to triumph over the enemy.
To be fair, both sides are unreasonably insufferable when a defection goes their way. But I do believe it is a bigger deal for the Christian than it is for the atheist. After all, our enterprise is not particularly evangelistic. We don’t go knocking on doors proclaiming the good news of disbelief or place pamphlets in hotels explaining that there is no god. We want to see religious belief marginalized for practical reasons. But we really aren't working al that proactively. There are no eternal consequences at stake.
However, the Christian really cares in ways that we don't. Those who are really earnest and loving are convinced that we are in danger of losing our immortal souls in some unspeakable manner. Their concern shouldn't be mocked or lightly dismissed. Some Christians spend some portion of their lives in tears over the fate of their non-believing friends. We should be overjoyed that someone loves us so deeply.
They also feel a bit of personal grief over their own failure to save a soul that was in their orbit. They believe they are on a mission from god. And every Christian friend of theirs who defects is a poor reflection on them as an ambassador for the kingdom of god. At some point, they have to tell themselves some sort of story to help them get through it. Your lost soul will not affect their happiness in heaven. God's justice is beautiful. You had a chance to save yourself from a fate that you must have ultimately wanted.
Again, atheists need no such solace. We honestly don't care enough to go through any of that. We generally don't care what people believe because we all believe things that are wrong and a little weird. We can deal with that. So if you decide to believe in a god, none of us are going to stay up at knight to weep over the condition of your soul. You believe in god. Big deal!
We don't consider it any kind of loss to the community because we are perfectly happy having believers in our community. We don't feel it is a loss of a soul because, for the most part, we don't believe in souls. Even those atheists who do believe in spirits don't believe that yours is in jeopardy because you believe in a false god. And we certainly don't generally have to tell ourselves stories about an afterlife fantasy that involves you suffering some awful fate because of your decision to believe.
So while defections happen on both sides, it just doesn't mean the same to atheists as it does to Christians. It is also a fact that Christians treat those defections very differently.
The asymmetry of switching sides
Christians do not treat all switchers equally. There is a pronounced asymmetry in the way Christians deal with those switching from Christianity as opposed to those switching to Christianity. Here are a few examples of what I mean:
The atheist to Christian conversion is always justified while the Christian to atheist conversion is never justified. I seldom hear a Christian opine that an atheist simply had insufficient justification to make the leap to believing in god. Any atheist making the transition to Christianity for any reason is a good reason and sufficient justification.
In the same way, I have seldom heard a Christian opine that an atheist was justified in moving from believe to none belief. No matter what the circumstances, the atheist is never justified in that move. This is a major asymmetry in how Christians view and treat switchers.
Motives are never questioned for the one converting from atheist to Christian. Have you noticed how no Christian ever stops to question the motives of the person switching to their faith. Those people are obviously good people with pure motives because if that wasn't the case, they wouldn't have honestly considered the evidence and made the switch.
The Christian moving in the other direction will always encounter Christians who question the motives of the newly-minted unbeliever. That person never really accepted Jesus and never had the Holy Spirit and decided that they would rather pursue a life of sin than a life of obedience. You get the idea.
They were never a Christian. This is one of the first accusations to be trotted out. Notice how the Christian moving to unbelief was never a Christian. But they don't except it if we say that an atheist moving to faith was never an unbeliever. In some cases, it is just a fact that some were never truly unbelievers. You can listen to them tell their own stories. They were just Christians with some troubling doubts. But they worked out those doubts in the context of a religious community and religious practices. The Christian doesn't accept it when we say that about a former atheist. But they say it about those who are former Christians. Those people were obviously never really Christians.
They never had the right idea about god. Almost everyone who has challenged me on my deconstruction has accused me of not knowing the Bible and not having the right ideas about god, or something of the sort. Interestingly, they never interrogate the new Christian about whether or not they have the right knowledge of the Bible or the right ideas about god. Because god reached out and brought them from the dark side, it is assumed that they have the right ideas about god.
It proves that Christianity is right when an atheist switches sides. This is one of my favorite of the asymmetries. When a Christian leaves the faith, it doesn't show that the faith is wrong. It just shows that the defector is wrong. But when an atheist becomes a Christian, it is absolute confirmation that Christianity is true. Only sinners run away from god. But the fact that anyone ever becomes a Christian is confirmation to the believer that god is acting powerfully in the world.
Conclusion: No bad reasons
I have made this point before but it bears repeating. I believe there are no bad reasons to leave the faith and become an unbeliever. First, you can't help it. You either believe or you don’t. You can't make yourself believe something you don't. And you can't make yourself disbelieve something you do. But at some point, you can stop trying to fight it. Many Christians fight their disbelief long before throwing in the towel and admitting to themselves that they no longer believe. Giving up the fight is not the moment you stopped believing; it is the moment you stopped fighting the fact that you no longer believe.
It is also a fact that many, if not most have no idea what made them stop believing. I don't know. That is why my answer is different every time I'm asked. It is usually not some dramatic event that made the difference. It is a lot of things that get caught up in the fog of decision.
That said, it doesn't really matter. For those who do have a more event-based conversion moment, the event or reason is irrelevant. It is always a good reason. Go ahead and try to think of the most unworthy reason to leave the faith you can imagine. That is still a good reason to leave the faith. Here's why:
God is supposed to be steering the ship and his spirit should be in the process of guiding you into all truth. If you came to him with a sincere and open heart, it is up to him to take it from there and move you in the right direction. When you first come to belief, you have no idea what is right and what isn't. That's why you need a guide.
Perhaps you had the bad luck of being converted by a false preacher. So what? The point is you were honestly seeking god. He should be the one to give you insight to leave that church and he should also be guiding you to a good one. If he left you to figure it out for yourself, that is on him, not you.
If you leave because your expectations about prayer were incorrect, that is also not your fault. What do you know about the intricacies of prayer? For all you know, you are supposed to be praying for pool tables. Some of the most esteemed Christian leaders have and it worked out pretty well for them. So if you were misled into having false expectations, again, that inner-witness should be able to steer you in the right direction. If you leave because of your sincere but faulty efforts to learn the truth, that is on bob and not you.
You can see how this works. Christianity has the magics that should protect a person from the things that make them leave. They didn't feel the presence of god in their lives. God could have showed up for them. They were abused by the church in some way. God could have protected them, especially knowing it would cause them to leave. They were tempted by sin. But greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world, right? I could go on like this for a long time. But I think you get the point.
I absolutely believe there are bad reasons to become a Christian. As unbelievers, all we have is human reason. So we have to use it wisely and well. Reason can be misused, or worse, set aside altogether. By reasoning badly, you have not committed any kind of sin. You have not destroyed your community ties. You have not cut yourself off from the same loving support you always had. But you could be making life more difficult for yourself. We care about that. But we also want you to have the freedom to pursue the path that leads to you being your best self.
I personally want you to walk away from religious and superstitious belief. But I don't give a damn one way or the other. You are free to be a person of faith. We're still good. I only wish it worked the same way in reverse.
See you in the comments...
David Johnson